The Race Card Cometh Yet Again

Political pundits often refer to the time we’re in now — a few weeks out from an election — as the “silly season.”

It’s a time for obsessing over gaffes real and perceived, faux outrage over harmless statements and a general sense of desperation on the part of one candidate or perhaps both. This cycle’s silly season started early, which is to be expected when the challenging party picks its nominee early and the incumbent party has no record of success to promote. But that early start means we sometimes run out of “silly” early and head straight to desperate — and absurd.

Virginia State Sen. Louise Lucas, a Democrat from Portsmouth, already has run out of silly. An official representative of the Obama 2012 campaign, a member of its “Truth Team,” no less, Sen. Lucas: went on the John Fredericks Show: in Virginia to discuss the presidential election and went off the rails. If you support Mitt Romney, she said on the air, you’re a racist.

Usually, leftists play the race card a little closer to the vest. They slip it into the game subtly, through hints and occasional one-liners. But not Sen. Lucas. She pulled it right out … early … and tossed it into the middle of the table.

“What I am saying to you is Mitt Romney, he’s speaking to a segment of the population, who does not like to see people other than a White man in a White House or any other elected position,” she said.

But she wasn’t done. She continued, “Let’s be real clear about it… let’s be real clear Mitt Romney is speaking to a group of people out there who don’t like folks like Barack Obama in any elected or leadership position. We know what’s going on here, and some people may be afraid to say it but I am not. I am not afraid to say it.”

She was “real clear,” all right … but only about her own bigotry and ignorance.

Lovely, right? The Obama “Truth Team” has yet to condemn this statement from an officially sanctioned campaign spokesman.

In 2003, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said, “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.” Aside from the fact no one had suggested she couldn’t debate or disagree with the administration, she was absolutely right. But don’t tell that to Sen. Lucas.

According to Sen. Lucas, “All the folks who are saying ‘We don’t like Barack Obama’ they can’t tell you any reason they don’t…”

No reason? None at all? How about three years of unemployment above 8 percent every month and growth below 3 percent every quarter? Or the $5 trillion in new debt, ObamaCare or recess appointments when Congress wasn’t in recess? I could go on, but to Sen. Lucas, I’ve already gone too far. I’m a racist. I wonder if my opposing President Clinton makes me a redneck-ist. Or my opposition to President Bush’s Medicare prescription drug program makes me a…actually, there isn’t a word for people who oppose things Republicans propose because the people with the hair-trigger to name-call all oppose Republicans. Weird.

Senator Lucas is mad — about what or at whom I have no idea. But she’s happy about one thing — she’s managed to pollute her children’s minds with her sickness. She told Fredericks, “I absolutely believe it’s all about race, and for the first time I’ve convinced my children finally that racism is alive and well.”

Great mom, eh?

When asked “Even in Virginia?” she replied, “In Virginia? How about all across this nation. And especially in Virginia!”

I guess she, a black woman, was elected by a bunch of racists. And I guess President Obama carried Virginia in 2008 because all the racists there forgot they were racists for a while.

Or maybe, just maybe, this country isn’t a racist country. This is where I add the caveat that racism still exists, in people of all colors, but in smaller numbers all the time. Progressives would like people to believe we’re a nation full of Mississippi Democrats from the 1950s, but we’re not.

Criticism of — and dislike for — the policies of a president who happens to be black does not a Klansman make.

Nor does judging the President by the standard he set for himself: when he said in 2009, “I will be held accountable. I’ve got four years….A year from now, I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress, but there’s still going to be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years, then this is going to be a one-term proposition.”

It’s not “done” in any sense — not even close. Every piece of economic data suggests it hasn’t even started in the direction of being “done.” But don’t tell that to Sen Lucas, lest she call Barack Obama a racist.

Derek Hunter is Washington, DC based writer, radio host and political strategist.